Paper Lanterns' Light
by Imp
Summary: Something set perhaps a few days - or even just a day before Chihiro arrives. Haku with a few moments peace to think and wonder? I can't think of a more precise summarization (such irritating things) -


Paper Lanterns' Light

By Imp

A/N: A rather brief story with Haku - perhaps a few days before Chihiro shows up – thinking about what he's gotten himself into, and such.

The sky was dark, only stars pricking its heavy blackness and over the bath-house a disturbed wind blew, whistling peevishly through the chimneys and beneath the roof tiles. Scattered lights were on below, but in the night they left little more than pale stains upon the dark, leaving blacker shadows.

It was a quiet night, and Yubaaba was gone, gone far-off for once, taking her wretched spying bird with her – and so she was left unconscious to some extent of the regular comings and goings and ordinary happenings of the bath-house. For once.

Haku sighed.

With a dying hiss the wind fluttered and with a cold breath fell, damp, retreating into corners, hiding in the cracks and crevices, silent. Yes for once Yubaaba was absent, her spying bird elsewhere and he was left to his own thoughts and pastimes, without the witch to watch him. He was free – if such could be called freedom – for a brief time, to do what he pleased. No one else would care where he was, what he thought, where he went, no one else ever knew anyway and honestly did not care to know. They did not care. 

No, what they had were suspicions about him, suspicions they all had, most of them rather unpleasant. 

"Yubaaba's henchmen… Does all her dirty work… Out for another's blood no doubt…Stranger…Her pet…Little thief – wanderer – vagabond –"

That would have been Yubaaba's doing. That was the kind of thing she fancied: spreading rumours, lies; a whisper here, a gesture there – it would have taken very little though, to convince the bath-house denizens to think ill of him, the favored young man Yubaaba kept so close - very little. They were suspicious by nature, and had no particular soft spot for 'strangers', nor for those who had more power than themselves.

The wind caught up again, whispering and whistling in and around the chimneys playfully, blowing back the dark hair off the pale young man's brow; his face was quiet, but his eyes were troubled. He had been warned, warned about becoming mixed up with the bath-house, with the witch, he been warned more than once. It had begun as a nagging discomfort in his mind, something uncertain, and it had continued: the Boiler-man had told him to be off, not to mess with such things as the bath-house was made of – go home he had said many times. But Haku had no home. No place to return to. 

But he could have gone. He ought to have gone. The nagging in his mind went on, more so after he had seen Yubaaba, and signed a contract to work. But surely, he had thought, it was nothing to dwell on. At the time though such feelings had been forced back, repressed even as if an outside consciousness wished to lull them, discounted as absurd – it had been long since he had dealt with anything like Yubaaba, and he had been weary. It was nothing. The feeling would pass.

And he had gone back. The feeling did not pass but he had gone back, and made a second deal, another contract. And he had lost. Lost himself, lost his name. He was Yubaaba's apprentice - no longer … no longer whoever it was he was.

Haku lowered his gaze, looking down onto the bridge below. A breeze stirred the colored lanterns and in the distance the train's low whistle moaned mournfully. The crackling, peevish wind, the train's hiss and groan – they were familiar sounds now, but strange in a distant way. Once the sounds that had surrounded him had been very different, though he remembered them only vaguely and in his dreams; the echo and sigh of fast-running water, the playful swish of the wind through the willow wands and the soft songs of the nightingales at twilight. And his name, which he had lost.

He had made that last pact, the last agreement…once upon a time… And so it seemed – once upon a time… Ages upon ages ago, in the deep past, clouded, vague… And yet he could see it now and then as though it were yesterday, or even as though he were present there, here and now. In a strange way it had not been so long and time passed peculiarly at the bath-house. It could all have been quite well actually, if he had not made it. And made it a mistake. He had missed something; he hadn't listened to the Boiler-man's warnings, he hadn't listened to his own misgivings, and now he was here, and he had forgotten.

Had he underestimated Yubaaba? Had he overestimated himself? Perhaps neither. But he had been foolish, and too eager – but too eager for what? The witch's secrets? A home? A friend? He didn't know, he couldn't answer the doubts and questions, and maybe he didn't need to. Yet he knew he had been a fool: he had thought to give all, to become apprentice, slave – and keep his name, keep himself. And he had failed as some part of him knew very keenly he must. Yubaaba was not so foolish.

Before him he saw the parchment, covered in spidery signs and words, and his own hand extended to write. And then a vagueness came over the memory, like a cloud or great distance. The skin prickled on his wrist, and crawled up his arm and unconsciously he drew back his hand sharply off the cold roof tiles. He realized abruptly that he could recall little after that. The cloud covered and obscured and the memory became darkness; he could not remember  - had he signed Haku or…or his name? Nothing.

Vivid, infuriating he went over the images again, but then they ended – leaving him lost, terrified in a distant uncertainty and smothered ignorance. 

The haphazard pile of papers and odd items strewn across the desk, the scarlet hangings, carpet and glowing fire, his own voice, the words obscured and then a coldness, dark. He couldn't move. There was something not right… "You can't play both ways, Haku… Surely you knew that I was not so foolish? If you wish to make a bargain, you cannot keep what you're trading – You agreed. And you're…mine… Haku is your name."

"No –" His sharp denial fell uselessly on the small breeze's thoughtless ears. "I'm not… I'm…I'm…"

He couldn't remember. He was lost, and his name was gone, his home…And he could remember nothing of it! - Nothing but the soft rush of running water and the breeze through the willows' fronds, distant, sorrowful, so far away.

Below came the train's low moan and the wind swished, making the paper lanterns dance, crackling.

~

A/N2: That's it. And I wouldn't mind hearing what someone thought of it, so if you have even a few moments – thoughts? Criticisms? Comments? I'm curious as to what someone else might think of – while reading. ^_^ IMP


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